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Issue 532 - Be Inspirational Not Divisive (Booker T. Washington Part Thirteen)


Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 11	Issue 532
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BE INSPIRATIONAL NOT DIVISIVE (BOOKER T. WASHINGTON PART THIRTEEN) John Wooden Video Clip (127 sec.): Coach Wooden talks about commitments and forgiveness. Pure Magic! Take two minutes. Booker T. Washington was an American educator, author, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States. Between 1890 and 1915, he was the dominant leader of American educational innovation and reform. Dr. Washington had a two-part philosophy. The first part was that he was constantly focusing on helping those less fortunate than him. Dr. Washington elaborated in his 1901 autobiography, Up From Slavery, how one of his mentors, Dr. Samuel Armstrong, the founder of the Hampton Institute, impacted his thinking: "From his example I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak." The second part of his philosophy was that he was unaffected by those who attempted to degrade him as he only returned their insults with love and/or pity as he stayed focused on his goals. Dr. Washington described the influence of Frederick Douglas, the leader of the original abolitionist movement, in this approach: "This reminds me of a conversation which I once had with the Hon. Frederick Douglass. At one time Mr. Douglass was traveling in the state of Pennsylvania, and was forced, on account of his color, to ride in the baggage-car, although he had paid the same price for his passage that the other passengers had paid. When some of the white passengers went into the baggage-car to console Mr. Douglass, and one of them said to him: "I am sorry, Mr. Douglass, that you have been degraded in this manner," Mr. Douglass straightened himself up on the box upon which he was sitting and replied: "They cannot degrade Frederick Douglass. The soul that is within me no man can degrade. I am not the one that is being degraded on account of this treatment, but those who are inflicting it upon me." Mr. Washington wrote: "I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him." The example of Booker T. Washington was always inspirational never divisive. Do you Inspire or Divide? Click here for personal development exercise: Issue 532. Click here for Printable Poetry: Issue 532. Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman www.woodenswisdom.com Follow @woodenswisdom	COACH'S FAVORITE POETRY AND PROSE What Makes An Artist? We got to talking art one day, discussing in a general way How some can match with brush and paint the glory of a tree, And some in stone can catch the things of which the dreamy poet sings, While others seem to have no way to tell the joys they see. Old Blake had sat in silence there and let each one of us declare Our notions of what's known as art, until he'd heard us through; And then said he: 'It seems to me that any man, whoe'er he be, Becomes an artist by the good he daily tries to do. 'He need not write the books men read to be an artist. No, indeed! He need not work with paint and brush to show his love of art; Who does a kindly deed to-day and helps another on his way, Has painted beauty on a face and played the poet's part. 'Though some of us cannot express our inmost thoughts of loveliness, We prove we love the beautiful by how we act and live; The poet singing of a tree no greater poet is than he Who finds it in his heart some care unto a tree to give. 'Though he who works in marble stone the name of artist here may own, No less an artist is the man who guards his children well; 'Tis art to love the fine and true; by what we are and what we do How much we love life's nobler things to all the world we tell.' Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959)
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